Apple Wins Ruling Keeping Samsung Case on Track for Trial

March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. won a court ruling
keeping its second patent case against Samsung Electronics Co.
in San Jose, California, on track for a 2014 trial after losing
a bid to dismiss a lawsuit claiming the iPhone maker improperly
collected and shared customers’ personal information.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh yesterday ruled against
putting the second patent case on hold. At a hearing last month,
Koh expressed skepticism about the need for both cases to
proceed, especially while the August verdict in the first case
is being appealed. Apple objected to delaying the case, while
Samsung supported it.

The second patent lawsuit was filed last year and covers
technology in newer smartphones made by both companies,
including Samsung’s Galaxy S III and Apple’s iPhone 5. On March
1 Koh reduced a jury’s $1.05 billion damages award to Apple in
the first case by $450.5 million.

The jury, in a case that was part of a legal battle for the
global smartphone market, based its award for 14 Samsung
products on an incorrect legal theory, Koh ruled. Koh denied
Apple’s request to ban sales of infringing Samsung devices as
Samsung denied copying Apple devices. Both companies have filed
appeals.

In a separate lawsuit in federal court in New York, Apple
may learn this month whether Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook
will be required to testify in a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit
over e-books pricing.

E-Book Lawsuit

The U.S. sued Apple and a group of book publishers last
year, claiming they conspired to raise prices for electronic
books in violation of U.S. antitrust law. Cook’s possible
testimony was disclosed yesterday in a brief order by U.S.
District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan, who is overseeing the
case.

In a three-sentence order, Cote set a telephone conference
for March 13 after the U.S. asked her in a letter on March 6 for
“assistance in settling a discovery dispute” with Cupertino,
California-based Apple over Cook’s deposition. The March 6
letter wasn’t part of the publicly available court file.

‘Disturbed’

In the customer privacy lawsuit that is also before Koh in
San Jose, the judge said in a ruling that she was “disturbed”
to learn that in its court filings seeking dismissal of the
case, Apple relied on documents that it was required to have
disclosed to opposing lawyers and didn’t.

Calling the company’s conduct “unacceptable,” Koh said
“the court cannot rely on Apple’s representations about its
compliance with its discovery obligations.”

Ashlie Beringer, a lawyer for Apple, said at a Feb. 28
hearing that it had produced all required documents, yet the
company was still reviewing e-mails of Steve Jobs and other
senior executives three days later, the judge said.

Apple’s claim that the executives weren’t actively involved
in the data collection issue is “surprising in light of the e-mail showing that Steve Jobs, then Apple CEO, personally
demanded that Apple software engineers immediately design and
release a software update” to remedy the problem, Koh wrote in
her ruling.

IPhones, IPads

Customers allege in their complaint that Apple collected
information on their locations through iPhones and iPads, even
after the device’s geo-location feature was turned off. In the
Jobs e-mail that Koh referenced, the company’s late co-founder
directed engineers to fix a “bug” that overrode users’ setting
of the location services to off, according to the ruling.

Beringer said at a March 5 hearing before U.S. Magistrate
Judge Paul Grewal that it was a “mistake” for the company not
to produce e-mails from Jobs, Phil Schiller, its marketing
chief, and Scott Forstall, the former head of mobile software,
in violation of Grewal’s November order. Grewal is helping Koh
with the case.

Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Cupertino, California-based
Apple, declined to comment on the privacy case ruling. Dowling
didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the
patent case ruling.

Tom Neumayr, another Apple spokesman, declined to comment
on the order in the e-books case.

Lauren Restuccia, a spokeswoman Suwon, South Korea-based
Samsung, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail sent after
regular business hours seeking comment on the patent ruling.

The privacy case is In re Apple Inc. iPhone/iPad
Application Consumer Privacy Litigation, 11-md-02250, U.S.
District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose). The
e-books case is U.S. v. Apple Inc., 12-cv-02826, U.S. District
Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).